Cake
by Tiquismiquis
Summary: Brady and Owain's mothers find out about their relationship a little sooner than the boys wanted . Brady/Owain, Owain/overdramatics, Brady/tears .


_Author's Note: This is all the fault of my actual Owain and Brady RP buddies. You have converted me into finding this pairing super adorable._

* * *

"Shit," said Owain, making Brady's eyes sting, because _he_ was usually the one cursing. Owain only slipped like that when he was afraid.

"Shut up," he snapped, and threw the swordsman's pants at him. The buckle slapped against his skin but Owain ignored it.

"Doesn't your mother ever _knock_?"

"She's my ma, okay? The hell would she _knock_ for; she changed my diapers."

"Not yet, she didn't! Your revered mother is _years_ from bringing you into this world in a glorious sweat of—"

"Stop," Brady hissed, "talking. About. Ma right now."

"Well, shit," Owain said again. "My mother's out there, too."

For a moment they just looked at each other. Brady took in Owain's tousled hair and sharp eyes and the small, dark cloud forming where his neck met his shoulder.

Ma had no idea that he'd made that bruise with his mouth, that he grew up enjoying sitting shoulder-to-shoulder with his best friend, that after their parents were dead, they'd spent their nights curled up together, clinging. Owain was the most important thing he had left, and he'd been keeping him a secret, because he was certain that _Lady Maribelle_ wouldn't approve. No, _her_ son was supposed to steep teas for exactly the right amount of time and snap his shoulders back at exactly the right angle and marry exactly the right, most polite, most elegant woman in order to have tiny children that were also stiff as boards and drank too much damn tea. Everything done _properly_. Everything so planned and _expected_.

He hadn't expected that prim, invincible lady with the frown lines and the bright eyes to be slaughtered, though. And he hadn't expected Owain's lips against his hair while he cried and cried and cried about it.

"Aunt" Lissa probably wasn't feeling much happier about what she'd just walked in on, either. Not after the conversation Brady had overheard her having with Owain the other day, about how Owain should find a girlfriend because she was ever so excited to be a real mom and give him love advice and be a scary mother-in-law ("But just for show," she'd added in a confidential whisper).

He couldn't get the sight out of his head: the two women squeaking, blushing, aghast, the tent flap closing behind them. They were in for a real talking-to, he knew, and it was going to be awkward as hell, and he was going to have to defend something that was _good_ for him, something he _loved_. And to somebody else that he loved!

Before he knew it, the tears that first formed when Owain spoke were escaping, so he quickly turned away while he brushed his hand over his eyes.

"Brady," said Owain softly; he'd turned too late.

"I said _shut up_!"

"Brady. It's okay. Come on. They won't be mad. Even a lion's mighty wrath would cower before the gentle yet unshakable strength of our love."

"_Damn it_, Owain, you don't know Ma like I do! She just—she—she's a sweet lady, but she'll judge you faster than a viper'll strike!"

He'd wiped his tears away but more were coming, so he quickly threw on his clothes. Behind him, he heard Owain do the same, but when he was tying the front of his robes, two strong arms circled around his chest and stopped him.

"We will face them," Owain said. "You and I, two seasoned warriors, staring down the very beings who gave us _life_. We will do it without fear and without shame."

"Without shame?! Our _mothers_ just walked in on us—"

"Details matter not!" Owain interrupted grandly. "And there will be time enough to sate each other later, since we were so suddenly interrupted in such a cruel and ironic twist of fate." Brady flushed painfully but the other man was ploughing on, as always: "We shall sally up to them boldly, invincibly wreathed in our bond, and profess to them that we plan to live without secrets, in darkness no longer."

"I'm so embarrassed," he mumbled through the tears over his lips.

"What?" Owain sounded shocked. "Of me?"

"No, idiot! Not _this_ time. I just—" He had to force it out: "I can't believe someone saw us like _that_! That's personal!"

"It'll be all right. Some great heroes we'd be if we succumbed to such a grim, clawing feeling as embarrassment."

"I think you could stand to have a little more."

"My heart! It's been pierced through! Oh gods, take my soul unto your bosoms—" Brady turned around, irate at the irreverent prayer, and Owain's arms slipped off him as the swordsman crashed to the ground in a fake swoon. "Leave me here, dear Brady! My death rattle is drawing nigh."

"That isn't funny," he said through gritted teeth, and dropped to his knees at his side despite knowing that Owain was only faking. "It _isn't._"

Owain sobered up at once and sat. "I'm sorry."

"You better be. You can't leave me to deal with all this alone."

"I won't ever leave you alone," he swore, and kissed him before he got to his feet, giving him a hand up, too. When Brady was standing, Owain didn't release him; just squeezed his hand instead.

"We'll do it together," he insisted. "Okay?"

"Yeah," said Brady with a shaky sigh. "You'n me."

xxx

They exited Brady's tent hand-in-hand, Owain marching and Brady trying not to slouch, to curl into himself. Ma and Aunt Lissa were sitting in the grass a few yards away under the rosy shade of the former's parasol.

"Mother!" Owain declared. "We must talk!"

"Yes," said Lissa with a pink flush and a small smile.

"Our love is a rock, see! Unbreakable! A boulder, even! Rolling down a mountainside with tremendous speed! It can't be stopped! It—"

"Oh, for heaven's sake," said Ma, stretching out her legs and crossing her ankles neatly. "Why do you feel the need to over-explain everything, Owain? It is unbecoming for a man to speak more words than necessary."

"Now wait just a minute," said Brady to quickly hop to his defence. "He's better at words than me, but if I have to defend all this too, I ain't gonna hesitate!"

Ma wrinkled her nose at the _ain't_ but Aunt Lissa looked shocked. "Defend? Brady, surely you don't think…" She trailed off and looked between him and Owain. "You thought we'd be mad? At our own babies?"

"Darlings!" Ma laughed. "Lissa and I wanted our children to be soulmates since we ourselves were children! Imagine how disappointed we were when you were both boys."

"But since it appears that doesn't change anything," Lissa added, "our dream can still come true!"

Brady sputtered and then blushed and then narrowed his eyes. "What're you tryin' to say? Is this a trap?"

"I _mean_, my duck," said Ma, "that we approve wholeheartedly."

"But your face—you looked so _horrified_—"

"We just hadn't expected to find out in such a…_raw_ fashion," she said wryly. Lissa covered her face with her hands and moaned,

"Maribelle, I told you that you should've knocked."

"For what?" she asked crossly. "I'll change his diapers someday!"

Brady elbowed Owain in the ribs. The swordsman was smiling in open relief.

"So you're happy?" Owain asked, and Aunt Lissa bounded up to hug him tightly around the neck.

"Of course we are! You both would be so cute, together!"

"And quite frankly," said Ma, standing herself, "I'm rather hurt that you would instantly assume that we wouldn't support you." She paused for a moment and then narrowed her eyes—that was probably where he got it from. "Well, about the important things, at least. You still slouch too much, Brady."

His retort was cut off by Lissa's next question: "So when will you get married?"

"Oh yes, do tell!"

"We can set something up right away!"

"Yes, immediately! I'll alert Chrom at once, and Libra can preside!"

"We'll pick a ton of flowers!"

"Bake a cake!"

"_Cake_!"

"Just give us a date!"

Brady and Owain just looked at each other for a while. This was a subject they had never breached, and for good reason.

"Mother," said Owain cautiously, "it seems to tempt the hand of fate."

"What?" Lissa suddenly looked like she might cry.

"After you both and the old man and everyone bit the dust," said Brady uncomfortably as he stuffed his hands into his pockets, "we were all we had left. We haven't had a moment of peace since then. It seems…stupid, to wave that around. To say we're still happy. Because then life'll just take it from us, like it's taken everything."

"We're at war, mother," said Owain, taking Lissa's hands. "We can not let our minds become clouded."

"But you love him."

"I loved you too—most fiercely. But that could not save you."

"We just feel better being cautious, is all," said Brady as Lissa's tears spilled over.

Even Ma looked a little red-eyed all of a sudden. "It's a vexing superstition but I suppose we must allow it. What about afterward, then?"

Brady looked at Owain again. What _about_ afterward?

"Oh, of course," said Owain easily as he hugged Lissa close. "Brady will be treated to a most elaborate proposal; I'll write him an _essay_ of honeyed words and he will be so surprised by my declaration of eternal commitment that—"

"It's not a surprise if you say it all out loud, idiot!" he snapped, but Owain was still going strong:

"And on our wedding day, we shall let loose hundreds of doves to fly free into the sky! And their feathers shall shower us in gentle symbols of grace and peace! And our cake will tower like a massive frosted _castle_—"

"Seems a little garish," Ma muttered to Brady with a smile, and he had to smile back. At least he could count on her to help tone things down.

"Look," he said finally to cut off Owain's chatter, "we're getting ahead of ourselves."

"Yes, of course." His hand twitched as he let Aunt Lissa go.

"Well," said Ma, "I'm ever so glad we have all this straightened out."

"Yeah," he said, throat suddenly constricting with relief and longing and the fact that Owain had actually thought through a proposal, and before she could correct him and make him say _Yes_, he quickly leaned forward and pecked her on the cheek. "I'll see ya at dinner."

For once in her life, she didn't say a damn thing; just put her fingertips to her face and smiled. Owain kissed his mother too before they left.

xxx

"They paired us," he said dumbly once his tent flap was shut behind them again. "Our own mothers wanted us together before we even knew that was what _we_ wanted."

"All's well that ends well, if you'll pardon a cliché," said Owain, and shot him a rather mischievous smile. "So where were we?"

"You were gonna hold me," Brady retorted. His amorous mood had long gone, and he rather wanted to curl up and cry out all the lingering stress.

"Right," said Owain, without a tinge of resentment or disappointment. He flopped right onto Brady's bedroll as if it was his own and held out his arms, and Brady settled into them, asking,

"Did you mean it?"

"What, that our cake will be taller than the castle my mother grew up in?"

That wasn't exactly what he'd meant, but close enough. _Our Cake_. "Yeah. That."

"Every word. And I do say a lot of words, don't I."

"Yeah, you do." The damn tears were hot in his eyes again.

"You don't have to hold those back," said Owain, so he didn't.

* * *

_A/N: Basically the idea of Lissa and Maribelle shipping their kids like giggly schoolgirls is the cutest thing ever, to me._


End file.
